1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for supporting an outbound operation in a call center.
2. Description of the Related Art
In call centers operated by business enterprises, an outbound operation and an inbound operation are performed. The outbound operation is an operation performed when promoting sales and includes, for example, making phone calls to potential customers to introduce them new products. On the other hand, the inbound operation is an operation performed for supporting customers and includes, for example, responding to a question by telephone and E-mail from the customers.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-355108, for example, discloses a technology for performing the inbound operation. It includes estimating a knowledge level of a customer, counting a response time taken by a customer for answering agent's question in an inbound operation, and using the knowledge level. The knowledge level of a customer is estimated from the technical words used in the telephone conversation between the customer and the agent and the response time in subsequent inbound operation.
On the other hand, agents perform the outbound operation by a trial-and-error approach based on the intuition of the agent over a conversation to the potential customer.
However, if the outbound operation is performed in the conventional way, there is a problem that a customer acquisition rate is not sufficiently improved. In other words, because information related to the potential customers is hardly obtained, the agent needs to use a uniformly selected material for various potential customers and to promote the sales by the trial-and-error approach based on the intuition of the agent. That is why the customer acquisition rate is not sufficiently improved.
Alternatively, one option is to select the material to be used for the outbound operation based on the information about the potential customers and that has been acquired by conducting a guest survey or researching a buying history. However, if the inquire survey or the research is carried on exclusively for improving the customer acquisition rate, there is a problem that costs for acquiring the information become expensive.
Thus, there is a need of a technology that can increase customer acquisition rate in outbound operations in call centers.